No Easy Answers
by yellowvalley
Summary: John Stilinski is far from stupid, and he's aware he doesn't even know the questions yet, much less the answers. Post season 2 finale.


First Teen Wolf story. Actually, my first attempt at fan fiction in quite a while. Not beta'ed, so sorry for the mistakes and the gross mis-use of commas. I can't quit them. Anyone willing to beta, let me know! Also, may have some seriously confusing time jumps, I wrote this while I had a fever, so… yeah. Made perfect sense to me! ;)

Will probably continue this, but maybe in sequel instead of chapters. I'm horrible at chapters.

Don't own, don't sue me please, etc. etc.

John Stilinki was far from stupid. He knew that whatever his son was caught up in was dangerous; and it appeared to be getting more so as time went on. No way was Stiles' little disappearance right after the championship game just a bunch of kids from the other team. That whole series of events was put into motion by someone a lot more organized, and a lot more terrifying. Someone arranged for those lights to go out just then. Someone stabbed the Whittmore kid during the darkness, and someonetook _his_ kid. The sheriff's kid. While the sheriff was blinded by the darkness not even a hundred yards away and powerless to stop it because he _doesn't know what's going on_.

It's not like John hadn't been trying to figure this out the entire time. His kid was stonewalling him, and for once cannot be intimidated into telling the truth. John's tried grounding him, yelling at him, and threatening to take away the jeep; though the last didn't work because with Johns' hours at the station Stiles had somehow ended up doing most of the shopping for the house and John wouldn't always be there to take the kid to school, so he backed off on that threat. He's also tried spending time with him, subtle bribery in being more willing to eat the healthy junk his son insists on, and even went low enough to snoop through his room a couple times. John's not good enough to break into the computer, which he knows would have some answers, but all he found otherwise was a random assortment of books on myths and legend. This probably went along with one of those roll playing video games Stiles and Scott both played. Or did play. There had been a sudden stop to that when all this started too.

The bruises are what convinced John that whoever his son and friend had pissed off meant business, though. They were meant to hurt, and look very ugly, but not really do any damage. And the thing that scared him was that his son knew this.

John has always tried not to eavesdrop on his son. As much as he wanted to know what was going on, he promised himself before Stiles was even born that he wasn't going to be one of "those" parents. But the night the Lydia girl came over, the first time anyone other than Scott had done that, Stiles had shouted. And John had gone upstairs to get his briefcase so that he could do some work. He'd heard what Stiles had said.

"You actually think this was meant to hurt _me_?"

His son had been used as a punching bag to get to someone else. To say that made him angry was an understatement.

In an attempt at figuring out a place to start getting some answers, John was going over everything he knew was a lie. He was hoping to find a crack somewhere, or a clue that Stiles or even Scott had inadvertently dropped. He went over the statements taken from the kids the night they got stalked at the school. He went over the Whittmore kids' statement about the "prank gone wrong" that John had a feeling wasn't a prank at all. He went over both the official and unofficial statements his son gave from the night the mechanic was killed.n He went over everything he could think of.

John knew the Hale kid was involved somehow. There was a reason Stiles and Scott had pointed the finger at him that night at the school, though he did believe that it wasn't Derek that had done it that night. Stiles had lied when he said it was Derek, John knew it then and there, and then Derek ended up being exonerated. And then the night of the formal Stiles admitted to knowing him a little bit "better" than what John had first hoped. John had also heard several times through the gossip mill of Derek being a passenger in his son's car, and vice versa. And while his son could be very very dumb sometimes, he wouldn't be getting into the car of someone who had tried to murder him.

John hoped.

The night of what John suspected was his son being kidnapped was a complete wash. He had a feeling not even those he suspected as the key players knew what was truly going on that night. Scott had been a blank wall as far as information goes, all "I don't know"s, but he could see the genuine worry and confusion in his face. Jackson Whittmore was lying dead on the Lacrosse field, and Lydia Martin had been going back and forth between being distraught and in shock, but there was also a terrible dawning of some kind of realization in her face, too. Like maybe she was just beginning to figure things out, but didn't quite have all the pieces yet.

He was envious of her. He didn't know what to make of _any_ of this.

Stiles just seemed tired, not to mention sore, by the time he made it home to let his father know he was "okay". He was definitely jumpy when he first got back home, but got more withdrawn and tight lipped as John questioned him about what had happened. Stiles had ushered him out of his room as soon as John allowed it, and every time John checked on him, he was just lying on the bed staring into space.

His son had snuck out of the house sometime after John got a call saying Jackson's body had disappeared from the morgue. John had forbidden his son from leaving the house until he had answers, but was forced to go check things out and try to convince Mr. Whittmore to not sue the hospital for losing his son's body. The man was devastated about the loss of his son, and was raging against the world. When Mr. Whittmore mentioned that he knew something was going on with Jackson but hadn't known how to figure out what it was to help and now it was too late, it was like a punch in the gut. All he could see was Stiles lying on the empty table instead. John vowed to stop that from happening. When he had gotten back to the house to find Stiles' jeep gone, he was livid.

John ended up beating Stiles back to the house by fifteen minutes, at about 5 A.M. and had done nothing but pace in the living room and call Stiles' cell repeatedly, fighting the urge to hurl it against the wall. When he saw the headlights pull into the drive, he was frozen for a second as he watched Stiles from the window. He watched as his son all but dragged himself from his jeep, and it took about three tries to get the door latched. Stiles rested his forehead against the window for almost a minute, like he was trying to get up the energy to make the walk into the house.

Or like he was trying not to break down.

John frowned. Seeing his son like this pushed the anger down, concern banking the fire. He met his son at the door, and drew Stiles into a hug without saying anything. Stiles nearly collapsed in his arms, but was completely silent as John held him and smoothed his hand over his sons' head. John led his son into the house, and had to stop him from banging into the door frame. The only time Stiles lifted his head was to stare at the staircase leading up to his room in something akin to despair, like this last little effort was going to be just too much. John led him over to the couch instead and had him lay down. John untied and slipped his shoes off, and spread the afghan kept over the couch over his son while Stiles just watched with what he suspected were tears in his eyes.

John sat on the edge of the couch next to his son's stomach and started rubbing his head again. Stiles closed his eyes, and took in a ragged breath.

"You going to tell me why you're so upset?" John asked quietly.

Stiles opened his eyes and stared back for a second, like he couldn't comprehend the question. "I'm just really tired, Dad." His voice was rough, but surprisingly steady.

Now that John could study his face, he realized that it was true. Stiles didn't look upset, not like he was when he came home after being beaten or while he was talking to Lydia. He just looked like he was at the end of his endurance.

"Okay. Can you tell me where you went then? After I told you not to leave the house?" John felt kind of bad about asking right now, with his son so out of it, but he felt like Stiles might let something slip now. He _needed_ to know.

Stiles frowned, and looked away before closing his eyes. "Sorry, Dad. I was giving Lydia a ride. She's really upset, you know, and I just couldn't say no."

John frowned. "Lydia has a car of her own, son." He could tell Stiles was sorting out what he could say, and what he needed to lie about. John could see his eyes moving underneath the lids.

Stiles made a face, but kept his eyes closed. "Yeah, but she was too upset to drive herself. It's something I could do to help. The only thing I could do to help. I couldn't not do it." By the end of his statement, Stiles had to take a deep breath, like he was trying to stop himself from letting his emotions punch through the exhaustion. He settled further into the couch.

John let the silence settle for a minute, then asked "Where did you take her that was so important at 2 A.M.?"

Stiles was obviously half asleep. His brow crumpled for a second before smoothing out. He muttered "To go help Jackson."

John froze. They obviously weren't the ones to take the body; Stiles had been home since before it disappeared and Lydia was here about the time it went missing. But maybe their weird group of friends?

"Stiles, where is Jackson now?" He didn't say Jacksons' _body_, didn't want to jerk his son back to full awareness.

His son didn't answer. He was fast asleep, and it tugged on John's heartstrings to see that even asleep his body and face were a bit tense. Like he was expecting to be rudely awakened any second.

John had been seeing the signs in his son since the formal, but didn't know how to help. John had joined the Marines right out of high school, and had seen this before, both there and on the police force. The jumpiness, the wariness, the interrupted sleep patterns. The way his son would look out the window a lot, like he expected something to be out there. The suddenly more intense need to take care of his father any way he could.

He recognized the signs of PTSD well.

He tried to get Stiles to go to the therapist he went to after his mother died when he first sensed something was going on, but Stiles looked at him with such betrayal over his face that he dropped it. He did insist on it after the whole mechanic thing went down, but after a couple of sessions his son stopped going, and John was too busy and too unsure it would help to drag him there. He was glad the school counselor insisted on a session after the police station and being held hostage by Matt, and was hoping it would be something Stiles would feel willing to keep up, but so far no luck.

John watched his son breath for a few more minutes, and indulged himself in tucking his son in and running his hand across his head. He stood up, stretched, then bent down to kiss his son on the forehead.

He was on his way up the stairs to get some much needed sleep of his own when his cell phone rang. Seeing it was dispatch, he warily answered.

"Sheriff Stilinski."

Karen the dispatcher was on the other end. "Sorry to bother you sir, I know you probably just got home, but I thought you might want to know this." He could practicly hear her biting her lip, something she did when she was nervous or slightly panicking.

John sighed. "It's OK, Karen. Just got my kid to sleep. What's going on?"

"Oh, how is Stiles? I know you were worried about him earlier." Now Karen sounded curious. She was new to the precinct (pretty much everyone was new thanks to Matt) but he was already sometimes reminded of his son with how short her attention span and how easily distracted she was.

John sighed again. "He's OK for now. What's going on, Karen?" He said a little bit more sternly. It worked way better with Karen than it did on his son.

"Yeah, sorry. Um. We just got a call from Mr. Whittmore. His very much alive son just came home. Said we obviously didn't need to keep searching for the body."

John froze at the top of the stairs, hand gripping the railing. "Jackson is alive? How? How did he get home?"

Karen's voice was incredulous. "Mr. Whittmore said his son was a victim of gross negligence, that he was, I don't know, 'mis-diagnosed' as dead. That he woke up in the morgue and freaked out, and apparently walked his way home. And that, surprise surprise, he was going to sue the hospital."

"Okay, thanks Karen. Let everyone else investigating know that we've been called off. I'll deal with this after I get some sleep."

"Okay, sir, have a good night. Well, morning. Whatever it is now. Goodbye, Sheriff."

John wasn't listening though. He was back in the living room in his favorite chair staring at his sleeping son, coming up with ways to get answers.


End file.
